Cute, but not quite right.

Square Dance Lyrics

Swing your partners Womble-style,
Dosey-doe with a Womble-smile,
Step to the left, step the right,
I wish we could square-dance every night!

Knees a-pumping, elbows high,
Soon we’ll serve some Womble Pie.
The fiddler’s working well for you,
We might square-dance the whole night through!

Womble fast and Womble slow,
That’s the way the music goes:
Up and down and round and round
Underground and overground!

Swing your partners Womble-style,
Dosey-doe with a Womble-smile,
You’ll square dance the whole night through
When … and … dance with you

(Sorry, I couldn’t catch that last line. Can you?)

Underground, overground
Wombling through
This is the Womble square dance
And we’re doing it for you

Sorry, this is being added to the not quite right pile. Actually, it is full-on not right at all. Not only is there only one dancer (where are the other seven?), but the outdated plinky plonky music and weird dance moves turn into “Turn Down for What” and twerking halfway through. Try harder next year, Master Chief. Find seven good friends and some awesome music to celebrate Square Dance Day 2015, please!

In our collection of square dance appearing in popular culture, there are very few examples where square dancing is portrayed properly and lots where it is not quite right. In That 70s Show, they have a caller, and he is calling actual calls that exist, but the calls don’t match what the dancers are doing. Also, they seem to be doing “old tyme” (or “traditional”) square dancing, but that may have been more popular in the 70s, so that could be historically accurate. If they had just matched the calls with the dancing, they could have avoided being relegated to the “not quite right” category. Try harder media people!

Square dancing is featured in an Arthur book:

Arthur and Francine are a square-dancing duo in gym class. When Muffy tries to switch partners (she’s saddled with Binky Barnes!), Francine refuses to trade. “Francine won’t share Arthur with me,” Muffy complains to Binky. “She acts like she owns him.” That’s all Binky needs to hear to put two and two together — Francine and Arthur are in love!

You can also watch the episode of Arthur (an animated show) that features square dancing here, but I have to warn you that what they are doing looks NOTHING LIKE SQUARE DANCING!

I am unable to confirm the historical authenticity of some of these moves. 🙂

Symphonic Dance: No. 4 Square Dance appears on the album “The Music and Art of J. Clifton Williams” by Rountree Wind Symphony.

This is what I could find out about Rountree Wind Symphony:

UW-Platteville’s Rountree Wind Symphony ensemble is a professional ensemble comprised of wind and percussion faculty members, selected students and alumni and regional professional musicians from southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa. “The ensemble is a great opportunity for a select number of students to play alongside both professors and wind band professionals,” said Ellis.

Source: Rountree Wind Symphony to perform tribute to James Clifton Williams on Oct. 20

And you can find out more about James Clifton Williams on Wikipedia.

I can’t find a full version of the song as performed by Rountree Wind Symphony online, but judging from this scratchy recording of the song being performed by the Heart of Texas Concert Band (Dr. Mark Rogers, conductor) in 2009, this doesn’t sound very square dancey to me, so it is getting filed under “not quite right“.